With TIFF over I finally got a chance to sit down with the boys of MaMo for more than the time it takes us to get into the theatre of a film we saw at the TiFF. So sit back and enjoy as I basically hijack an episode of MaMo and ask them to do it with me and Douglas around talking with them.

Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff-vol-4-w-matt-brown-matt-price/feed/30:33:51
With TIFF over I finally got a chance to sit down with the boys of MaMo for more than the time it takes us to get into the theatre of a film we saw at the TiFF. So sit back and enjoy as I basically hijack an episode of MaMo and ask them to do it wi[...]
With TIFF over I finally got a chance to sit down with the boys of MaMo for more than the time it takes us to get into the theatre of a film we saw at the TiFF. So sit back and enjoy as I basically hijack an episode of MaMo and ask them to do it with me and Douglas around talking with them.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)Podcast, TIFF13gmanReviewsyesnoTUMP @ TiFF Vol. 3 [w/ Ryan McNeil]http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff-vol-3-w-ryan-mcneil/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff-vol-3-w-ryan-mcneil/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 13:56:39 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11824

It’s coming to the end of the festival and we’re going to be doing one more show before Douglas and I depart the land of the Canadia. However, last night we got to sit down (in a very loud diner, so apologies for the audio) with Ryan McNeil of The Matinee as we discuss a bunch of movies we’ve seen over the last few days.

Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff-vol-3-w-ryan-mcneil/feed/00:33:06
It’s coming to the end of the festival and we’re going to be doing one more show before Douglas and I depart the land of the Canadia. However, last night we got to sit down (in a very loud diner, so apologies for the audio) with Ryan Mc[...]
It’s coming to the end of the festival and we’re going to be doing one more show before Douglas and I depart the land of the Canadia. However, last night we got to sit down (in a very loud diner, so apologies for the audio) with Ryan McNeil of The Matinee as we discuss a bunch of movies we’ve seen over the last few days.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)Festivals, Podcast, TIFF13gmanReviewsyesnoTIFF Day 6 Report: Politics, Love, Unconventional Life & Attraction of Innocencehttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-day-6-report-politics-love-unconventional-life-attraction-of-innocence/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-day-6-report-politics-love-unconventional-life-attraction-of-innocence/#commentsFri, 13 Sep 2013 17:57:38 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11820It’s as if I brought my Jamaican weather to Toronto today as it was searingly hot outside, which made for a great day inside to watch movies.

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (dir. Errol Morris)

This is not the 9/11 Pentagon tell all. This isn’t a bad thing, it is just a warning for those lovers of things like Fog of War looking for that in this movie, it’s not that. Errol Morris himself after the screening even said, “This is not Fog of War 2… it’s more Tabloid 2″… and I agree.

Donald Rumsfeld is a career politician who has become infamous for being perfectly amazing in public relations and he continues to do so here. In this series of discussions that Rumsfeld has with Morris we follow his discussions of post 9/11, Iraq, Raegan, Cheeney and many other aspects of his career and personal life. They’re all done mostly through a series of memos that he was known for while in politics which many called “snowflakes”. We’re treated to his reading of them as well as a visual representation on screen. The most stark memo is the one the title comes from, discussing the “known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and unknown knowns” which we hear read a few times in the film.

More than being informative this is being meditative as somehow Morris is able to capture a sense of Rumsfeld as he talks his career with us as well as he can and we’re just engaged throughout. The way that Morris handles the visuals as well as auditory experience of this conversation is able to hold our attention for the full 100 minutes without waning in any way. Even when at the end of it all we ask ourselves what we learnt and come up with little to nothing then it seem even more masterful the work of Morris.

Grade:★★★★☆

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HIS & HERS (dir. Ned Benson)

It’s a sprawling romance which is divided into two sides of the story, His and Hers. The filmmaker, Ned Benson, touts the film’s ability to be watched in any order and as such I saw it in the order of Hers and His, After the mysterious death of Eleanor and Connor’s child their relationship gets into a bit of a problem and Eleanor needs space to figure things out. In this time we see how their lives change from being madly in love to something else and struggle to make it on the other side.

What I love so much about this movie is that not only is it dramatically great but it has this sense of memories as opposed to objective voyeuristic filmmaking. There are a few scenes that both Connor and Eleanor share in the film and that is where it shines as you see the blatant separation of his story versus hers and it works. It’s no longer just about their development as an outsiders perspective but rather a very much more internal process.

Grade:★★★★☆

CHILD OF GOD (dir. James Franco)

This film follows Lester Ballard (Scott Haze) as this wild man lost after he’s removed from his land and had it sold from under him. He spends the rest of the film running around the caves and woods just being and whenever he comes upon someone else it never seems to go well.

In a film where you will be subjected to graphic masturbation, defecation and necrophilia many have to ask what good this film has to offer. It’s a harsh film with little plotting as some would try to forgive it if it were a documentary and we could ask the filmmakers how they actually found this man and why they wanted to highlight him. However, as it was a choice of not something real to find interesting but something fictitious it feels wrong.

Eventually I stayed for the sake of counting how many walk outs there were from the audience; there were 12. (Am I allowed to give a 0/5?)

Grade:★☆☆☆☆

MAN OF TAI CHI (dir. Keanu Reeves)

Action amazingness which is perfectly what I needed at the end of this day. At a festival like this I end up stacking a lot of heavy films. Foreign films where people are just sad and defeated and some that are just obtuse. Man of Tai Chi comes to save the day and provide great entertainment value with some amazingly shot kung fu that I think is way better than many want to give it credit for.

There are certain sequences, even the first training scene, with Tiger and his Master that the camera movement just feels different and engaging. This feels great throughout all the sequences.

Man of Tai Chi‘s story itself is borderline questionable at times, but also simple enough that it doesn’t really break anything too easily. Tiger is brought into this underground fighting ring for some odd reason and Donaka (Keanu Reeves) is his sponsor that seems to be leading him down a path that we’re unsure why he even cares for.

Part of me expected this to be the typical American kung fu film but it reeks of amazing Chinese cinema with not just the setting but being a production of China with very few non Chinese actors or moments. With the exception of Keanu’s scenes I believe everything else was completely Chinese dialogue and while Keanu’s scenes were bad and on the same level of all of his other films when it comes to performance conversations I’m starting more and more to believe that it’s more a case of Keanu giving us what his fans expect — i.e. cheesy cinema moments that we laugh at— than anything else, and I’m okay with that.

It’s been seven days and we sat down for breakfast with Douglas on the morning of Day eight to talk about our disappointments so far as well as more movies we loved and other topics of discussion.

Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff-vol-2/feed/00:36:45
It’s been seven days and we sat down for breakfast with Douglas on the morning of Day eight to talk about our disappointments so far as well as more movies we loved and other topics of discussion.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us[...]
It’s been seven days and we sat down for breakfast with Douglas on the morning of Day eight to talk about our disappointments so far as well as more movies we loved and other topics of discussion.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)Festivals, Podcast, TIFF13gmanReviewsyesnoTIFF Day 5: Points of Reference & Cinematic Mashupshttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-day-5-points-of-reference-cinematic-mashups/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-day-5-points-of-reference-cinematic-mashups/#commentsWed, 11 Sep 2013 11:22:08 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11814Today was a light day for me with a couple of films followed by an amazing meet-up with a ton of local cinephiles and TIFF goers at a pub around the corner. It’s nothing but smiles and joy here at TIFF 2013…

THE DOG (dir. Allison Berg & Frank Keraudren)

In 1972 in NYC there was a bank robbery. In 1975 they made a movie about it called Dog Day Afternoon and this film is about the real John Wojtowicz, who was played by Al Pacino in the film from 1975.

Directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren decided to get John on camera discussing his life and his infamy, the problem with that is somewhat the discussions come off as one note for the entire 100 minute runtime. As one of my most anticipated films of the festival I left it completely disappointed and unsure of it all. With this fascinating event in history where we see John and Sal rob this bank in Dog Day Afternoon we get to follow John tell his story before and after the event.

The problem with this film as whole is the bank robbery in itself. It’s become such a iconic moment in film history that as a set of film lovers that Berg and Keraudren are when they eventually get John and his family on camera they barely are able to stray from that point in time that it becomes just a film about how many times they can have John and family discuss the fact that he’s “The Dog” as he says so often. The discussions are never challenging or interesting as while the whole angle of John’s motivations for robbing the bank being for his homosexual lover that wanted to have a sex change, those things are covered in the previous film and just worth a moment’s mention as opposed to a full film’s runtime.

Grade:★★☆☆☆

THE DOUBLE (dir. Richard Ayoade)

Richard Ayoade (Submarine) returns with his adaptation of a novela by Fyodor Dostoevsky about a man who encounters his doppelganger that eventually takes over his life. Just like the novela, Simon James is introduced to James Simon (Jesse Eisenberg) which are polar opposites, Simon is the diligent hardworking brilliant man that can’t get a word in a room while James in the smooth talking guy that barely spends a minute as his desk. We watch as Simon tries to deal with this new version of himself running around in his world.

The film comes off as a cross between Brazil and Dead Ringers as Gilliam and Cronenberg are obvious touchstones for film of this nature. We’re in this office setting of complete repression and control that it’s only when the loveable outgoing Simon James enters it looks anything but just horrendous spaces that people hate.

I adore this movie so much. It’s like a 90 minute ride of crazy as we see the idea of the future being just an automated world and at the same time seeing the overrealised world that feels like the future people thought was going to happen in the 50s and 60s but didn’t — which were things we say in Gilliam’s films — and at the same time it kind of talks about the importance of being an individual and not hiding in the crowd as many do nowadays.

I need to see this movie again…

Grade:★★★★★

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-day-5-points-of-reference-cinematic-mashups/feed/0TIFF Report Day 4: Generations Learning, Horny Detectives, Tragic Romanctics, My TIFF Nap & Personal Painhttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-4-generations-learning-horny-detectives-tragic-romanctics-my-tiff-nap-personal-pain/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-4-generations-learning-horny-detectives-tragic-romanctics-my-tiff-nap-personal-pain/#commentsTue, 10 Sep 2013 15:00:38 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11807After yesterday’s muggy day today was a bright warm morning where I hated myself for walking out to start the day with jacket in hand. The jacket just became a personal carry-on luggage that I didn’t need and I hated that. This should be one my few early mornings and my first 5 film day (I have 2 more of these this year) and other than nodding off in and out in a film (read below to see which one) I managed to keep going and saw Horns, Empire of Dirt,and more, even after a crazed midnight screening the night before.

Here’s the results of yesterday’s films:

EMPIRE OF DIRT (dir. Peter Stebbings)

A film about a single mother who’s a former addict now part of the community but still struggling. Her daughter begins to make some poor decisions and eventually sets them back home to her mother where it becomes an onslaught of inter relational dynamics of pride, regret and seeking answers.

“Marsha. Marsha! Marsha!” The drama is what this movie is, its not the hard choices of his to survive but how to forgive and while it does that so well it still isn’t so perfectly set up and executed that you’ll walk out trying to assess your own family dynamic s and where you need to say your sorry or accept Another’s. The film’s able to keep us engaged in Peeka, Lena and Minerva’s tale of just trying to be together to help one another amazingly well. Some reveals are very easily seen and developments that us as a third party to the story see coming a mile away such that we almost feel like that best friend who’s watching the train wreck from a mile away and want to scream at them to turn around but sadly can only watch on as it collides.

There’s a final scene that appears after a somewhat climax of the plot that bothered me though as the film begins to throw in a whole new element in one minute that the film didn’t need. When did the film make this family’s problems about their ethnicity, other than lady modeling as Asian.

Grade:★★★★☆

HORNS (dir. Alexandre Aja)

Fun. The word that is most associated with this movie is fun. Alexandre Aja goes everywhere you can with a film like this. It’s dark, silly, smart, noir and even romantic throughout and there isn’t an aspect of it that fully fails. There are a few character trappings that I found silly, but overall they were cured with some other element overshadowing it.

Horns is a film about Ig (Danielle Radcliffe) who is under a lot of scrutiny with the recent murder of his long time girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple), with public opinion being very strongly sided with the thought that he did it. One day a pair of mystical horns begin to grow out of his forehead and he soon discovers that he is attaining supernatural powers, such as the fact that people must be completely honest with him when in the presence of the horns. He quickly figures out the mechanics and begins using it to his advantage to help solve the mystery of who killed Merrin and at the same time clearing his name.

Aja digs deeply into the supernatural and it just works. As you see Radcliffe go deeper and deeper into a bottle looking for answers only to eventually be blessed with these horns it plays on a sense of loss turned into a weird silly comedy. Early in the process as we just see everyone just start to pour out their secrets, from one girl’s desire to fatten herself because she’s tired of being attractive since men still don’t like her all that much unless she’s sleeping with them to a slew of television reporters that we see follow every step of Ig just to try and get a story being made to fight it out in a battle royale, the film switches from dark seriousness to comedy relatively easily and almost always with a true necessity for that levity at the time. If this film had just been a gritty noir detective story with a guy who had supernatural powers that we could link back to Christian theology, it would’ve been too heavy a film that just looses it’s place after a while. There are moments where that detective sense doesn’t quite land perfectly and the audience is just clamouring for more humour or romance and that’s what ends up happening.

Grade:★★★★★

I AM YOURS (dir. Iram Haq)

Mina (Amrita Acharia) is a young single mother in Oslo, Norway, who’s struggling with life a little bit and not sure where to go. She’s an actress but more than that is lonely. She meets Jesper (Ola Rapace), a Swedish filmmaker, and they hit it off immediately. The film follows Jesper and Mina on their relationship’s ups and downs as well as Mina’s family situation, her son, Felix (Prince Singh), and how all these elements intertwine and conflict with one another over time.

There are a lot of intimate films about a character in a relationship or a relationship on a whole that I adore, like Blue Valentine. I feel this movie really captures that tone of lovely and just how lost Mina is in life right now. She wants love, but she also has her son that takes away from that, her family is constantly judging her as her actions — i.e. going on dates and being what the rest of the western world would consider a normally sexual lifestyle with boyfriends and such — and supposedly being ostracized by the Indian community in Norway. However, we only see this judgement from her father and mother, so I wonder whether this is a dying society within Eastern Europe? There are always sub cultures, but it’s just a part of European life that isn’t that well examined in film, how sub cultures can be lost on the next generations who want to be their own culture of Norway as opposed to the world they came from.

The film itself feels like the ups and downs of a relationship. There’s the period of eternal bliss and the moments of just heartbreak; and the film revels in these moments so well. The character of Mina is one that will be judged heavily though. Her management of her relationships is in a manner that many will scrutinize and say that she’s not really doing that well, not because she is a bad mother, or a bad daughter, but that the moment she finds someone she wants to be with romantically she finds it very difficult to prioritize it in with all her already pre-existing relationships. She lies to her ex-husband in order to get him to watch their son so that she can run off with Jesper, when Jesper is grating because he’s obviously not ready to be a full-time father she tries to put him above her son in a way that many would find troubling. Mina is not a forgivable character in this way, but it does make for some interesting drama and overall engaging cinema.

Grade:★★★★☆

SEX, DRUGS & TAXATION (dir. Christoffer Boe)

I apologize. I caught myself napping too often in this film to comment. However, there was a scene of a gorilla being “tamed” (if that’s the right word) by the sight of a man’s full formed erection… so there’s that.

Grade:N/A

FAT (dir. Mark Phinney)

A very personal tale about a life looking for happiness while deeply entrenched in sadness that all stems from being fat, or that’s what Ken (Mel Rodriguez) would have you think if you asked him to his face.

This film almost feels like a Sundance darling, and I’m starting more and more to think of that as a negative more than anything else. The kinds of films I see out there with that honoured “Sundance Selection” badge proudly in their marketing material end up being films like this. Poorly made films with a lot of heart that allow us to truly get to know these characters in a way that not only sympathizes them but empathizes them. However, the problem with all this is that you have to get through a relatively amateur production in order to get to that heart that makes it worth your time. The trade off is so high though with a film like this that I’m not certain whether I can recommend it at all openly.

Here’s the first dispatch of me and Douglas talking about our films at TIFF… more to come.

Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tump-tiff13-vol-1/feed/00:22:38
Here’s the first dispatch of me and Douglas talking about our films at TIFF… more to come.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the p[...]
Here’s the first dispatch of me and Douglas talking about our films at TIFF… more to come.
Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here. You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS or iTunes and now Stitcher. It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show)Podcast, TIFF13gmanReviewsyesnoTIFF Report Day 3: Childish Depravity, Vampiric Artists, Depression on a Stick & Cannibals Junglehttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-3-childish-depravity-vampiric-artists-depression-on-a-stick-cannibals-jungle/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-3-childish-depravity-vampiric-artists-depression-on-a-stick-cannibals-jungle/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 15:00:03 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11804A rainy day in Toronto started with me at the Bloor Cinema, eating udon noodles in china town and then eventually capping off with South Korean animation and Eli Roth’s latest horror delight.

PALO ALTO (dir. Gia Coppola)

The film based on a series of short stories written by James Franco being adapted by first time filmmaker Gia Coppola takes a look at these surburban tales of teenagers looking for trouble in the abscence of parental guidance. Throughout the film we follow April (Emma Roberts), Fred (Nat Wolff), Teddy (Jack Kilmer) and Emily (Zoe Levin) as they stumble through life going from one decision to the next in a somewhat downward spiral of morality and self worth.

While it’s easy to see the right and the wrong side of the coin that is these children’s decisions, between Fred’s dickish behaviour and Teddy’s lack of managing his supposed friend, we still view it with an earnest sense of emotions because we know these are children and bad decisions is what they make all the while. Once you’re able to believe in this parenting model of not saying anything other than, “time for dinner” after your son comes home from a court hearing where he could’ve gone to Juvenile Detention then you’re ready for the melodic friendship bracelet wearing film that this is.

I, for the most part really enjoyed this movie. The few moments where I wanted to hit these children over the head were many, but at the same time I didn’t feel like they were misplaced moments. This is all to hint at the general lack of parenting that Coppola and Franco see in today’s generation that’s allowed to run wild in a way that they feel they weren’t and their views of what the results of that will be. Girls and teachers, sexual experiences galore and guys doing dumb stuff. One would say that this happens with or without parenting, but the question is to what degree?

Grade:★★★☆☆

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (dir. Jim Jarmusch)

We’ve all sat through an incalculable amount of vampire films but there’s something that is less than most discussed in the ideas of vampirism and that’s the idea of solitude that comes from eternal life. Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a aged old vampire musician who adores the sciences and creativity of life but loathes the people who restrict and dismiss it, who he refers to as zombies. He’s a musician who refuses to be seen by the outside world, as a precaution for being discovered as a never aging being, who’s going through a crisis. This crisis brings his wife, Eve (Tilda Swinton) to him from Algiers to Detroit to console him.

The film’s asset is not just the characters but the mood and the acting that comes with that mood. The love that we see between Adam and Eve — also, what a fun way to pose them as the beginning by naming them Adam and Eve — is a love that seems more than just a regular marriage somehow that has evolved over the centuries into something even more special and alluring than anything seen on screen before.

Many seem to be uncertain of Ava (Mia Wasikowska) in this film but I adored her. While I loved her in Stoker earlier this year this is possibly her most fun role to date and it will be gifd and clipped so much. She plays Eve’s younger sister that crawls under Adam’s skin so much that you love it while hating her so much for being a petulant child.

Otherwise Hiddleston and Swinton just own this movie. Every scene of Hiddleston playing his music, or Swinton mocking his technological feelings are perfect. Also there’s a great cameo performance with Jeffrey Wright and I feel I need to start making a twitter game to make up more versions of his moments because it’s such a fun joke in the film.

Grade:★★★★☆

THE FAKE (dir. Yeon Sang-ho)

Guys… this movie is depressing as all hell. While waiting in line to go in I noticed a ton of Asian families (father, mother, son and daughter) all in line for this movie. Then within the first ten minutes there’s the use of the words “fuck”, “cunt” and “bitch” about fifteen times including mention of suicide as well as horrible fathers. This movie is tough, and I’m not sure I’d go calling it rewarding anytime soon.

The film follows a poor family in a small town in South Korea that is slated to be flooded out for the purposes of making a dam and one day their supposedly estranged father returns out of nowhere and throws their entire dynamic out of whack. With the mother a participant in this church that’s become a big part of the community and a daughter who’s just been accepted into University. Upon his arrival he has an altercation with the leader of the church which happened because he decided to take away his daughter’s savings, that she had for school, in order to go out gambling and drinking, claiming that she is not supposed to run away from her family even if it is for further development. However, at the same time this begins we see our main character look closer at the leader of this church as he knows that he’s a fake and that this religion is just here to pollute the minds of these poor country folk.

So he begins his war path and when all is said and done I can’t imagine what part of this film doesn’t end poorly. It’s wall to wall depression and while it’s wonderfully executed with some amazingly curious animation styles you’re going to have to find some cute puppy pictures right after to stop yourself from sinking deeper down a hole you my have been teetering on from time to time.

Grade:★★★★☆

THE GREEN INFERNO (dir. Eli Roth)

Eli Roth, the horror geek that all horror geeks love to love, is back with a cannibalistic tale deep in the heart of the jungle and I’m not quite sure. Writing this literally 45 minutes after walking out of the screening I had a mixture of tense frightening and general apathetic viewpoints to what many would consider to more meatier parts of the film.

As it relates to the first half of the film wherein Roth is busy trying to set up how and why we have a group of college students even going to the Roth stumbles through stereotypical college caricatures as he normally does attempting to create light comedy while getting us along easily enough. He almost wants a Cabin in the Woods style of chemistry between our main characters, however we end up spending so much time with them before the actual “inferno” that any affable characteristics eventually turned to annoying. From the guy who’s always had his mind on getting high, or the other one who’s really into Justine (Lorenza Izzo) and jumps at the sight of Brad Pitt’s name on a cart (or whatever they call those rickshaw/bike things).

When we get to the last thirty minutes of gore the film picks up in a way I didn’t expect for a movie of this kind to do for me. While I have my misgivings of horror films, and I do quite enjoy Hostel, the gore — while not ready to throwup on the stage repugnant — is well done. There is a moment here or there where I feel it repeats itself in a bad way and could be cut down some but for the most part it keeps it fresh and moving throughout. My only issue is that the main lead up in the section was pretty much telegraphed from the opening five minutes of the film and while it had me ready to cover my eyes, I was relatively certain that I would be safe. Even in this film touted as the goriest thing since… people figured out how to fake blood on screen I guess, the film manages to be digestible by more than they think I feel.

Grade:★★★☆☆

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-3-childish-depravity-vampiric-artists-depression-on-a-stick-cannibals-jungle/feed/1TIFF Report Day 2: Moments of Grief & Cum on Titshttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-2-moments-of-grief-cum-on-tits/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-2-moments-of-grief-cum-on-tits/#commentsSun, 08 Sep 2013 14:00:00 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11799Day 2 of TIFF is now over and while my number of events/screenings has decreased from yesterday I will soon begin my craziness – before the weekend is over I hope to add another 10 films into my “watched” column. So here’s today’s offerings:

SOUTHCLIFFE (dir. Sean Durkin)

In a rural area of England there is an event which causes a lot of loss to the members of the town of Southcliffe and in a four part miniseries we follow their time as it passes before and after the event. Filmmaker Sean Durkin makes an interesting decision to take this long form storytelling structure that was created for television and have it presented theatrically at the festival because I’m not quite convinced it works.

The story as itself is interesting and has a lot of well done things about it however it feels like a different experience seeing it in one sitting in a theatre where you’ve been forced into seeing this in sequential order and it reeks of a television trope of having to call back to a specific moment that we’re already aware of to remind us that something happened as if we’re a week apart from actually seeing it. There is also an element of disconnected storytelling where Durkin takes us on this journey through the eyes of different characters each time which helps to flesh out the world that is Southcliffe, however more times than not it just feels troubled.

I liked the show and feel it’s worth watching, but the experience theatrically was just questionable at times. On a side note, Eddie Marsan is just fantastic in this film.

Grade:

★★★☆☆

JASON REITMAN’S LIVE READ: BOOGIE NIGHTS

The photo above was taken by Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and is used with his express permission. Read some of his great content over at The Matinee.

This was amazing. Last year I skipped the same event where Reitman gathered a cast to read the screenplay for American Beauty and something about it peeved me. So I decided without fail I would make it to this event, seeing it would be repeated, and when I discovered it would be for a PTA film I couldn’t resist.

So most of you, I’d assume, has seen the film and already love it like I do, but what this event taught me is how well a great screenplay comes across. For those who believe that it’s just the dialogue that makes a screenplay great it’s not. While we had the assistance of a visual, with a screenshot of the setting of whatever scene we were in from the film, overall I found myself barely looking at it as opposed to watching all the actors and Reitman just play along and describe the whole thing to me.

The stand outs from the cast were Jason Sudekis, Dane Cook, Josh Brolin, Jarod Einsohnand Olivia Wilde. Sudekis and Cook killed every bit that they were given. Throughout the reading they would be given other smaller parts that were not cast and between Cook’s line reading for the role that was originated by Luis Guzman and Sudekis’ singing while playing the bit role that Alfred Molina did in the film they win. Brolin was a solid choice for Jack Horner and payed off perfectly while Einsohn worked because he had a lot of other bit roles, including a great moment as the guy banging Little Bill’s wife early in the film and I laughed so hard.

I liked the moments where the actors — as well as Reitman — would break and just admit how funny the screenplay is as a whole. And yes, Sudekis singing is perfection in a comedic bottle. However, the moment of the night for me, because I’m a bad person, goes to Olivia Wilde’s reading of the line “Just cum on my tits”during her first porn scene with Dirk.

]]>http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-2-moments-of-grief-cum-on-tits/feed/1TIFF Report Day 1: Painting, Internal Processes & High School Horrorhttp://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-1-painting-internal-processes-high-school-horror/
http://www.gmanreviews.com/tiff-report-day-1-painting-internal-processes-high-school-horror/#commentsSat, 07 Sep 2013 22:09:59 +0000http://www.gmanreviews.com/?p=11795I’ve completed my first day of TIFF-ing and it’s great to be back in Toronto seeing the films enjoy their moment. I started by picking up my tickets at the box office, I’m now up to 39 screenings in 11 days planned. Here’s today’s offerings:

TIM’S VERMEER (dir. Teller)

In the world of artistry there isn’t any oil painter more intriguing than Johannes Vermeer. In today’s world there isn’t anyone more interested in everything and what I like to consider a professional hobbyist — other than maybe Richard Branson — than Tim Jenison. Tim has made his future in technology through software and graphics design and is now in the opportune position to do whatever he wants with his life. What he now seem to want to do is to recreate a “Vermeer” painting as Vermeer probably did it, and in this time he happens to have Penn Jillette as a friend who found this massively interesting and decided that he needed to get this on film.

The process of this painstaking project is so interesting for no other reason than Tim Jenison is interesting. He comes off as pretty much the real version of Tony Stark being the guy who loves engineering and problem solving such that we become invested in watching him solve the problem. Then when we get around to the execution of recreating the painting it becomes a world of artistry that we marvel at. Due to the mechanical nature of this man made process that Jenison discovers we’re left to question whether this is something that diminishes the value of art in itself or increases the value of technology. The two sides of the coin, one being completely subjective and in a analog discussion, and the other being completely objective and discrete in how it measures success and failure. In the world of art sometimes failure by the numbers is the highest form of artistic success, or that’s what a lot of film writers would make you think.

What makes this movie special is that it doesn’t diminish the work. In the world of art or technology while the end product is something that can be consumed and lauded or dismissed particularly quickly the production of it is something that takes years. The film forces us to be there with Tim the entire way as he draws lines so detailed that many others would ignore them saying that they wouldn’t be noticed, but they are, and much appreciated.

Grade:★★★★☆

CLOSED CURTAIN (dir. Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi)

The tonal sequel to This is Not a Film, the 2011 film where Jafar Panahi discussed his constriction while being under house arrest and banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government for making propaganda anti-establishment films. Here we’re treated to a more narrative based outing by the filmmaker as we watch a Writer (Kambuzia Partovi) stuck at home as he attempts to hide away with a dog he just saved as it seems to be currently outlawed for dogs to be a part of society. On that same night Melika (Maryam Moqadam) appears and torments Writer as she questions his every habits and choices.

The film preys on what we can imagine is the internal process that is Jafar’s life right now. As a relatively prolific filmmaker in the 90s being restricted today it leaves him with little creative output and even would push a man to question his will to live as we see in the film from time to time. These are all things that I find fascinating as a personal document of one’s self state — and I for one hope that Panahi is fine and moving on to the next project — but at the same time the film falters in barely being able to keep it’s audience truly invested.

For the half of the film we’re left with just Writer and Melika and are left in the dark as to how this film relates to anything. It comes off as ridiculously obtuse and nothing more. However, when the second half comes in and we see Panahi himself appear and things start to come together is when the word “interesting” can be thrown into the mix. By then though most of the audience is already lost. Even for the audience that enjoyed This is Not a Film — not a mainstream effort by any stretch of the imagination — will find a tough time getting into this circular narrative.

Grade:★★★☆☆

ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE (dir. Lucky McKee & Chris Sivertson)

If I had to put a stereotypical example of messy horror that attempts to be cheesily funny but fails at every turn this would be it. We have the high school setting with the typically snotty cheerleaders and the football players who think they’re the shit and then there’s the one outsider who just happens to be there… and there’s a witch somewhere in the middle of all that.

The film’s shock value is lost through completely unintentionally bad effects, inexplicable rules to govern the world of the film and villains that appear to be the main threat only in the final moments. At times the film just feels downright lost in it’s own subgenre of horror comedy. There are scenes where these cheerleaders become all powerful and it’s used to do nothing and just frustrates the viewer completely.